


soon you'll get better

by alltheworldsinmyhead



Series: royai drabbles [11]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Marriage, No happy endings, Terminal Illnesses, dying, fair warning it is not a pretty story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 21:18:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20748920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheworldsinmyhead/pseuds/alltheworldsinmyhead
Summary: Time's running out for Riza. And they can do nothing else, but face this truth.





	soon you'll get better

**Author's Note:**

> Okay.
> 
> This is easily the most personal story that I have ever written. My mom died of cancer almost two months ago and I needed to cope with that, hence this fic. Tbh, I don't even think it can strictly be called fanfiction - I simply used those characters to channel my personal trauma. Sorry not sorry for that.
> 
> It feels very weird to post it publicly, but I decided to do it, cause the fact that this doc was somewhere on the hard drive of my laptop was driving me mad. Also... I feel like the topic of death and dying is not discussed often enough nor openly enough. I certainly hope that this story will maybe help someone who's going through something similar to what I'm going through. Or maybe will help someone to understand how it feels to say goodbye. How heavy this grief is. 
> 
> The title comes from Taylor Swift's Soon You'll Get Better, cause this song is by far the most accurate description of what's going on in the head of some who has a sick parent that I have ever seen.

> _When you're feeling lost I'll leave my love_
> 
> _Hidden in the sun_
> 
> _For when the darkness comes_
> 
> _ \- Colbie Caillat_

_RIZA_

The house’s so quiet and feels so inviting that she could cry from the sheer relief of coming inside. There are no flames dancing in the fireplace but she still feels warmth worming underneath her skin, replacing the bone-chilling coldness of the rain outside. With a sigh, she kicks off her shoes before putting them neatly in the corner and stepping on the white plush carpet in the corridor. She wiggles her toes in it, enjoying the texture against her battered feet.

Soft material makes her steps almost soundless as she makes her way through the first floor and climbs up the stairs. Even Koya doesn’t lift his little ginger head from where he’s sleeping, in his wicker basket by the doors of her younger daughter.

Riza gently pushes the door, letting them open slightly. The light from the corridor spills inside the room, framing Sara’s bed in silver; her little face so pale in the poor lighting, dark hair messy and thumb inside her mouth.

It’s been a few years since she last did it, since she last came back to the childish comfort of this coping mechanism. Riza was sure that she has it well behind her, those moths of coating Sara’s hand in foul-smelling ointments or wrapping it with ribbons.

Despite her best wishes, she can do nothing but take a few steps closer and then another few and then suddenly she’s on her knees right next to the bed. Carpet in her little daughter’s room is blue, Amestrian royal blue, deep and soft. Her girl loves this color. Wears it in her hair and on her clothes and all her pet animals are blue too. But as Riza watches her sleeping face, she thinks pink would be a shade much better suited for Sara, with her rosy cheeks and flowery innocence of a child shielded from any possible harm, any dangerous blow.

That’s what they have been doing all this time, her and Roy. Spreading an umbrella above their girls’ heads, building glass castles on the clouds for them and keeping them safe at all cost.

Riza gently touches Sara’s still-chubby hand and contemplates pulling her thumb from in between her lips, but ultimately decides against it.

Her daughter will need all the comfort she can get soon.

*

Sometimes she feels like she has spent most of her life waiting.

When she was six years old and her mom went into labor, nobody suspected that it won’t be a quick thing, devoid of complications. Tereza Hawkeye was a strong woman, used to hard work on the farm and running the house for her absent-minded husband. Riza remembers her red, calloused hands and freckles that would appear on the bridge of her nose during summer months; remembers her smile and the smell of her hair. There wasn’t a soul that would look at her and guess that Tereza was born in the aristocratic circles of Central City, with an army of servants ready to attend to her every whim and silk dresses in her closet, that she could rise very, very high if she didn’t decide to so-called ‘’follow her heart’’, run away with the young alchemist and settle down with him in the village on the countryside, forgotten by god and men alike.

To be honest, Riza never thought much about her mother until she became a mother herself. Trying to put together fragments of Tereza in her head the way one could play with a jigsaw puzzle, she looked through few faded photographs she had left and recollected even more faded pictures in her memory. And the more she thought about it and the more she watched Roy and Grumman playing chess together, the more she pondered of how much of a hopeless romantic really was in her mother. Because it seemed to her Tereza could be as well a perfectly pragmatic young woman who just plainly decided she preferred to be barefoot and pregnant at the edge of the world than to be pushed on the board according to the whims of her father – even as a queen.

No matter her motives, Tereza married Berthold Hawkeye and gave him a daughter before dying in childbirth along with their son.

And Riza remembers that waiting all too well; small blonde girl sitting forgotten and omitted on an armchair in the corridor, clutching her teddy bear close to her chest, her face pressed to the faded material. She remembers screams behind the wall, remembers how her father stormed inside, remembers the sound of the door shutting close. Remembers long hours of pressing her fingers to her closed eyelids just to see stars exploding. Sometimes she feels like maybe she never left this armchair, never hoped off to kiss her mother’s soft, cold cheek goodbye.

And then years and years of silence, of wind blowing inside the house and playing with endless pages of her fathers’ notes laying discarded on every surface. Of silence in which they both were trapped, like flies in a jar full of honey, which they shared for so long she thought she will never speak again. Until a pretty boy from Central City appeared on their creaking doorstep, with his laughing dark eyes and a suitcase. He bowed in front of her politely and asked about her name.

And she said ‘’Riza’’, even though only her mother ever called her that, even though she was ‘’Tereza’’ in her birth certificate.

And he smiled widely.

‘’What a beautiful name.’’

Forget fire alchemy; the warmth she felt in that moment was incomparable with any other before and after.

At least her daughters won’t be left to her own devices after she’s gone. At least she has given them a better father than hers. _At least this, at least that_, all bitter, all making her choke.

*

They tell them first thing in the morning.

Time for deception and avoiding this topic is over. They wasted it on constructing elaborate lies instead of trying to find the right words and it’s so, so hard now. Riza grips Roy’s hand tightly under the table during the breakfast and opens her mouth before he has a chance to.

“I’m sick, girls.”

The harsh, ugly truth. Cruel military honesty.

Sara whips her head up to stare at her in shock, her eyes round like coins and confused. She drops her fork; it slips from in-between her fingers and lands with a clatter on the porcelain plate, spraying her blouse with yellow of scrambled eggs. But, as Riza takes a look at her older daughter, she thinks Eli as well could’ve, on the contrary, turned into a stone. She doesn’t even blink. She just sits perfectly still, her hand suspended in the air, reaching for a bread roll.

A heartbeat passes, maybe two.

“Girls-“

Eli’s hand slaps down on the table.

“How sick?”

Sara’s bottom lip starts to tremble. _Dear god, please don’t let her cry. _– thinks Riza desperately, feeling something welling up in her chest. She feels like a grenade about to burst and kill everyone in the room. Maybe that’s truer than she suspected.

She tries to answer and, horrified, finds that she cannot seem to find any words.

“Very sick, Eli.” – says Roy instead; quietly, gently, he reaches out to caress Sara’s cheek and here they are, rolling down her perfect, pink skin. Tears, one after another.

Riza cannot breathe, cannot think even.

Eli slowly lowers her eyes, until they stay stuck on her plate; she is so, so beautiful like that, lost in thought. Forget blonde hair and sun-kissed complexion of Hawkeye’s, forget her blooming breasts and round face – she has never looked more like Roy right now, when Riza can almost see the gears in her head turning, her brilliant mind putting facts in order.

“I knew it. I knew it and yet… I didn’t want to know it.” – Eli’s voice is very quiet, barely above whisper, but she commands the attention of everyone. Even Sara stops biting on her lip to look at her. – “You stopped working and god, all those trips. The trip all the way to Xing, that you didn’t take us – you were visiting Al and Mai, right? To ask if they can do anything.”

Riza suddenly has an urge to laugh. To cry also, but mostly to laugh. Her eyes find Roy and there it is, their common understanding _how could we thought we can ever keep anything a secret from them?_

Even if they don’t know, they do. Sara’s finger stuck in her mouth, how big of a crybaby she became lately, her ever-brave and ever-bold firecracker of a girl. The stare of Eli’s watchful eyes analyzing every action and change in their daily routine.

“You are too smart for us, darling.” The corners’ of Roy’s lips twitch as if he was about to smile. “We never give you enough credit.”

Eli takes a shaky breath and barks a sad, little laugh before burying her face in her hands for a moment. When she raises her head up, her amber eyes are shiny.

“I don’t think I am, honestly. If I was, I would know what to tell you –“

“Are you going to die, mommy?”

Silence falls like a knife, cutting Eli’s sentence in half and freezing Riza’s brain. Sara is standing now, hands planted flat on the table and she leans towards her; tears still rolling down her cheeks and nose already red, she asked her question with the dead seriousness, crashing violently with the high, birdy pitch of her voice.

Ishbal was one, never-ending bloodbath that she will never manage to atone for. Working under Bradley was a constant, day by day struggle, when her body felt like a taunt bow-string, never relaxing, always on alert. During five minutes when she thought Lust had killed Roy she barely felt alive at all. Promised Day was a nightmare. Her first miscarriage sent her into the very depths of despair. Sitting with Roy in that room and hearing the results of the tests, seeing his face and the light gone from his eyes, she was sure there will be nothing more harder than that. But having lived through it all, Riza realizes has never felt more broken, more helpless and devastated, than now; when she has to gently cradle her youngest daughter’s face in her hands, look her in the eyes and say, without any turn-backs or bullshit excuses:

“Yes.”

*

There are more than a few things that she loves about her life. She loves their house in Central; cozy, bright and without fancy high ceilings and big windows that would put her bodyguard instincts into overdrive. She loves her dogs; their simplicity and loyalty, how they always come over to greet her home, how they appreciate a good scratch between their ears and how they all remind her of dear Hayate somehow. There are days that she even loves Central City, its hustle and bustle, and all the memories – good and bad alike – that she made here.

But above all, she loves her family and each and every person that form it. She suspects she will never stop marveling at the miracle that happened to her at some point; that the lonely, sad little girl growing up as alone as a child can possibly be, ended up surrounded by so many people loving her and caring for her. So many people to say goodbye to.

She considers herself lucky. More than lucky – the luckiest.

It doesn’t think any of this makes is easy. On the contrary - she thinks it would be easier if she was not so generously gifted by fate. The biggest struggle, as she learns in time, is to not say _I’m fine_ all the time, not repeating it as a foolish parrot round the clock. She respects Roy and girls too much to maim them with this fool’s gold phrase, but it’s so difficult. She finds herself biting on her tongue more often than not, several times a day, until there are scars on the soft tissue that refuse to heal.

Cause she is not fine.

*

_Where it hurts most, _asks her Roy one time, desperately, in the dead of the night; his arms around her, holding her upright from behind and his lips on the back of her neck as she sags above the toilet. At this point, she can’t remember how much time has passed since she started vomiting, the room is spinning in front of her eyes and she too bone-deep tired to even try faking anything, and so maybe that’s why she actually answers him.

She slowly wills her arms to raise up, until her hands are up in the air, high enough so he can see.

“This.” She says, voice small and throat scraped raw, but she knows he would understand anyway.

This never-ending shaking, twitching, trembling, as if somebody was electrocuting her limbs all the damn time. Her treacherous hands that used to be so sure and reliable holding a gun, finger concrete-still on the trigger, and which now did not even allow her to braid her daughters’ hair. She misses their sureness and, even more than that, the sign of them simply makes her scared. Everything is more real, more tangible, seeing this tremble.

And then she starts to vomit again, with blood this time, and she doesn’t want to remember anything else from what followed, but she recalls how it ended; the blissful, cool sheets, the wet rag on her forehead. Roy on his knees by the bed, kissing her every finger and knuckle and line on her palms.

*

They go to Dalisay in June, just four of them. The road is longer and harder than Riza hoped it would be, with pain running up and down her spine like an electric current, her hands struggling to turn the pages of the book - but it’s nice anyway, so nice.

She cannot read and is too tired to talk really, so she just sits with legs resting on the opposite sofa and head nested on Roy’s shoulder, listening to Sara’s baby-bird-twitting. Her girl spends the whole journey standing up with her palms pressed to the glass, looking out of the window and asking about everything – _what is this station, what is this city, how many hours ahead of us, are these sheep, mommy look, mommy look_. And Riza obliges, slowly turning her head in the direction of the outside and nobody has to know that she doesn’t look at the sheep, or horses, or little farms, but she just watches Sara; her eyes gleaming, her cheeks cherry pink, dark hair curling around her face.

Eli has an alchemy book on her lap, opened right at the middle, but it’s more for the show as she’s not reading either. From time to time, she scratches Mochi’s head or pets Koya gently, but most of the time she just stays silent. Riza feels her eyes on her, as her skin tingles from the intensity of this state, with the familiar desperation, love, and longing. How to burn someone’s face in your memory, in your heart? If you stare long enough, can you remember for forever?

So, the only voices in their compartment – a nice one, really, with comfortable sofas and wooden floors and curtains, private, for what she’s more than thankful – are Sara’s questions and Roy’s answers. He knows everything about the landscape outside and Riza wonders how weird it must feel for him, going down this old memory lane with them, taking the same train that he used to take as a little boy and then teenager, but many years later, with his family and his dear, dying wife. She doesn’t know what kind of feelings it must evoke – she was always the one waiting on the train station after all, static and longing.

He tells Sara – _this is river Enola, do you know where it starts? This village is called Priam, they have a sunflower festival every summer, yes, we can go see it. Yes, this blue thing is a lake, lake Moore. It’s very big. Like, hm, from your school to the park? No honey, I don’t think whales live there. Dolphins neither. But there are many other fish._

Riza skids closer to him, feeling his arm gently wrapping around her, his fingers rubbing circles on her hip. He must take comfort in knowing at least this, answering at least those questions. For Roy’s action-driven nature it must be torture to drift with her like that, time slipping from in between their fingers like water. But he slows down to stay by her side as long as they have left, wills his blood and heart to match the rhythms of hers. He is no longer her wildfire, but a rock, solemn and still.

Unflinching.

*

Dalisay’s somehow just like in her memory and completely different at once, and it makes her head spin. The streets are busier, livelier – with the opening of new train lines and the discovery of rare elements in the area nearby, her sleepy little village has never been so awake. But the air still smells like honeysuckle and strawberries, the grass is so shockingly green compared to the one in Central.

It’s a new world, altogether. It’s almost like they crossed some barrier and entered a foreign land.

And her daughters explore it eagerly, even Eli losing that worried expression from the train in order to curiously peek around the corners and listen to people talking with a melodic, longish intonation that Riza has abandoned long ago, somewhere between the first and second year of the Academy. Sara basically vibrates with energy as she runs from one stall to another on the farmer’s market, begging Roy for sugared almonds or a pack of mint candies.

As the girls lead the way, the two of them slowly stroll, step by step. Riza holds onto Roy’s arm, but she feels so light that it surprises even herself. The pains more bearable like that. She can almost convince herself that the girls are a little smaller, that they are still a First Family, that it’s just a regular Saturday like thousands before and thousands after. The sun’s so warm and honeysuckle so sweet, and they take a break here and hide in the shade for a second.

“I have dreamed of taking you on that damn market, you know.” – Roy whispers into her ear and she just has to laugh at the irritation at his voice. –“ But I never had enough money or guts to do it.”

“To be honest, I think guts were the bigger issue.” – she waves her hand at the crowd and the stalls. – “ The only thing you could’ve bought me here back then were carrots probably.”

He chuckles lightly, gently sneaking one arm around her waist to stabilize her, as the smooth street turns into a cobblestone path. She wonders briefly if he even notices those small acts of care that he performs or if they are something completely instinctual. Her heart swells at the thought and she turns her head slightly and presses a kiss just below his jawline.

“What was that for?” he asks softly, caressing her cheek with a free hand in return.

“Everything.” She simply states and rests her head on his shoulder as they continue to stroll at snail’s pace, in silence this time. She is sure he understands. They never really needed many words between them anyway.

Bathed in the warm light of the setting sun, they make their way forward.

*

There were snakes in Ishbal. Or, she supposes, there are snakes in Ishbal, since they have proven to be far more resilient than Ishbalans.

Upon entering the front, the first thing higher-ups did, was presenting her with a pair of military boots and forbidding her to ever take them off. They were monstrous things, made from tough, boiled leather, with an extra protective layer around the ankle; they weighted a ton and made her feet cook inside, turned her skin white, slimy and wrinkly. But she and everyone else would dutifully wear them every day, even in their sleep, mindful of the alternative.

Sand vipers like dark and cool places, just like humans in the desert. They are small and sleek, their bodies fashioned for zig-zaging through the golden dunes and escaping from sunlight. If they bite you, you don’t even feel it at first; you go on with your life, resume your duties. But after two hours or so, you start to shiver violently. Then, in mere minutes, you lose your balance. Then your sight, your hearing. And then you die, just like that. It takes maybe an hour from the first tremble. You don’t have any time to say goodbye, to write a letter to your loved ones. You are gone before you can feel yourself slipping away.

More Amestrians died from this goddamn venom than from any Ishabalan resistance, that’s for sure.

Riza’s sickness is kinda like that.

It takes time to unravel, gives her a room to breathe, gives Roy and the girls and even herself some hope against all reason, because how can she die if she still can walk and talk and smile? If she cooked a dinner yesterday and tended to the flowers in the garden in the afternoon?

Yes, she can.

Yes, she does.

One morning, she doesn’t get up.

_I still have time to say goodbye, I still have some time, I still do. - _she keeps on thinking right until it runs out.

_ROY_

In the end, after Havoc and Catalina take sobbing Sara away to their flat, it’s only Roy and Eli, alone. Her, curled on the bed by Riza’s right side. Him, kneeling on the floor next to the bed by Riza’s left side. Each holding her hand.

It’s very late and very quiet, no sound besides Riza’s heavy breathing. She has lost consciousness days ago and ever since then, Roy has been staring into her unseeing eyes and trying to spot just a spark of awareness in them, just a little bit of brightness. It’s all for naught, of course. Her eyes are still brown, but they are no longer hers. He doesn’t know where his wife went to, but she’s not here. He told that Eli a thousand times and more and she would always nod in understanding and then lay back down on the folded sheets and resume tracing gentle circles on Riza’s limp hand.

So he gave up trying to talk her out of staying. Besides, her presence gives him comfort, he cannot deny it; she’s the other set of heartbeat in the room that is not going to go silent any time soon. And she’s the only one who can possibly come close to understanding what he feels, no matter how different was Riza’s role in her life compared to the one in his.

Riza, Riza, Riza. Slipping through their fingers so damn quickly. He keeps on begging for just one more smile from her, just one more word that means anything; not the delirious babbling that she sometimes lets out, not those screams full of fury when they try to move her. She just went under so quickly and violently that it makes his head spin.

‘’Life is no more than a candle burning in the darkness, about to get blown away at any moment.’’ – Eli whispers, breaking the silence.

Roy almost smiles at that. They’ve been playing this game of quotes ever since she was six, but recently, she started to win more than lose. His bright girl.

“I don’t know.’’ – he admits, his eyes trained on Riza’s face. God, she is still so beautiful. Her skin is clammy from sweat, lips half-opened and cheeks hollow and she remains the only woman he has ever had eyes for. – ‘’Who wrote it?’’

‘’Mom said it.’’

Eli’s voice is heavy and, when he takes a look at her, he realizes she’s on the verge of tears.

“She did?’’

‘’Yeah. She also said I should cherish the light as soon as it lasts. But - papa, this is - so hard.’’ – his daughter lowers her head, her hair falling down and obscuring her face from him, but he can still hear her choked sobs. Her shoulders are shaking. She hasn’t called him ‘’papa’ since Sara was born.

_She does not deserve this, _crosses his mind. _Maybe it’s my punishment for all the things I did, but she’s innocent. She’s good. She does not deserve this._

He wonders what he can say to her to make it easier for her and finds himself empty-handed and terrified. So he settles for the only thing he can say.

‘’I know, baby. I know.’’

He holds out his free hand and she takes it. Her grip is strong and sure, and he thinks, once again _when did she grow up, when did it happen? _Five minutes ago she used to have two long braids and missing front teeth. Ten minutes ago she used to be a sleeping babe by Riza’s breast, cheeks pink and brows constantly furrowed, as if she was pondering about the universe’s biggest questions. And now she’s here, they’re both here, holding hands in a circle and waiting in silence for the candle to burn out.

*

‘’She wanted to say goodbye so badly. We had so much time and wasted it all.’’

‘’We did not waste any time, dad. I don’t think you can ever really say goodbye to someone like that.’’

*

Riza dies before the morning comes, choking on the blood flooding in her lungs and flashing the whites of her eyes in desperate attempt to catch yet another breath. Roy does not cry; instead, he stays solemn and still as a stone, his voice loud and clear, telling her how he remembers when they first met.

“What a life we had, my love. You can go now, rest.”

He can feel his heart beating in his throat.

Eli sobs helplessly, clutching Riza’s hand to her chest.

“I love you mom, I love you, I love you.”

_Maybe Eli is right. What more can you say than that? I love you, I will miss you. And Riza already knows all of that, wherever she is. _

“You don’t have to be brave anymore, Riza.” - He tells her, every word dipped in honey of years well-lived.

And then there is only silence, uninterrupted, ringing in his ears like a gunshot.

He can swear that his wife last breath was a sigh of relief. 

_ELIZABETH_

Dawn finds Elizabeth curled on the swings in the garden.

She has laid down here after mom died, hours ago; slipped out of the house just when the lights of uncle Jean’s car appeared on the driveway. In part, she wanted to give them all the space to say their goodbyes and didn’t feel like she was needed inside. In another part, she just wanted to be somewhere else for a while.

Nobody told her that death had its own smell.

And nobody told her that her mom’s corpse will still be soft and warm after she passes away. That, if one would not look for it, you could even not notice she wasn’t breathing.

Elizabeth sat on the bed and felt as mom’s hand in hers was growing colder and all she could think of is that it’s still her mom.

And so she fled, her feet wet from the morning dew and sobs still tearing through her body.

She’s not crying now; it feels like she has run out of tears, to be honest.

Somewhere, at the back of her mind, she’s thinking: _there are mom’s clothes hanging in the closet. Her shoes put neatly on the shelves by the door. Her favorite mug, the one with chipped rim, on her bedside table. Her favorite perfume, the one in a blue glass bottle, in the bathroom. _

_What we’re supposed to do with all of that?_

_What am I supposed to do, when she’s gone? _

Now it’s only her and sunrise, light caressing her face like her mom sometimes used to do, when she was tucking her in. She closes her eyes and she can almost see that; moonlight coloring mom’s hair silver and her soft, low voice wishing her goodnight. The smell of her shampoo. The quiet rhythm of her steps on the carpet as she was leaving, the sound of the door shutting close because Elizabeth never wanted the ajar.

Mom used to sing to her when she was sick. _Soon you’ll get better. Soon it’ll get better._

Elizabeth pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them. Maybe she can pretend it’s not real, if only for now. Maybe she can forget that their time has run out.

Maybe she can just – close her eyes and think about her mom, about her face and her voice.

_Ooo-ah, you’ll get better soon. _

Despite the morning chill, for a moment, all she feels is warmth.

**Author's Note:**

> I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts. But please, be gentle with your words.


End file.
